Euripides

Euripides (480 BC-406 BC) was an Athenian Greek tragedian during the Classical era.

Biography
Euripides was born on the island of Salamis in 480 BC, the son of Mnesarchus and Cleito. He studied painting and philosophy under Prodicus and Anaxagoras, respectively, and he sought to have a career on stage. He became a playwright, writing plays such as Medea in 431 BC, Hippolytus in 428 BC, Electra in 420 BC, The Trojan Women in 415 BC, and Bacchae in 405 BC (published posthumously). Euripides lived in Argos for many years, where he took up the typical Argive habit of being a heavy drinker. In 431 BC, he attended Pericles' symposium at his residence in Athens, where he met Aristophanes and the mercenary Kassandra. He drunkenly revealed to Kassandra that several Spartan women went to Argos to pray for their babies, helping Kassandra in the search for her long-lost mother Myrrine. He was later associated with Socrates as a leader of decadent intellectualism, and he chose voluntarily exile in Macedonia after Socrates was persecuted in Athens. He died after being attacked by King Archelaus' Molossian dogs in Macedonia in 406 BC.